Editor’s Note: Since November 2018, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of -3.9% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,878 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.3% across 762 completed high and medium-confidence picks.
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. For futures bets and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
Gelo missed last night, but the Blues winning is good for our futures portfolio, and even if they can’t pull off the series upset, it can’t hurt us. More hockey today, more baseball futures. For futures portfolio context: The NHL futures bankroll started at 100 units, with another 100 in reserve in case of hedging need. The MLB futures bankroll started at 520 units, with another 520 in reserve in case of hedging need.
ALCS
The Blue Jays began the season as the best team in baseball on paper, with enough firepower that we took them a few times in this market at +350 odds. Now, it takes +525 odds to justify a play, and even this is narrowly valuable. We’re taking it because it makes them a profitable path again within the ALCS-specific part of the portfolio, and they’re a fairly likely playoff team, so we want them to be a profitable path.
Pick: Toronto to win +525. Medium confidence.
NLCS
The defending champions have plenty of challenges, but they’ve also gotten themselves to a spot where they’re just three and a half games out of playoff position with more than four months left in the regular season. That’s a fine position for a team with this strong a roster.
Pick: Atlanta to win +850. Medium confidence.
New York Rangers @ Carolina
We’re being fairly aggressive today, making bets in both our markets for both games tonight. We think Gelo has a fairly good read on these series, having profited in the two between Games 2, 3, and 4, and we only need to split the four to profit, but it’s admittedly risky. Does it mean something that the Canes have won every home game so far this postseason and lost every road game? Maybe, but that’s the kind of thing that can get overvalued in a market pretty fast.
Pick: New York Rangers to win +132. Low confidence.
Pick: Over 5.5 +116. Low confidence.
Edmonton @ Calgary
Will the Oilers close it out tonight? Gelo has them favored to do so. It’s hard to stress enough how underwhelming the Flames’ postseason performance has been so far.
Pick: Edmonton to win +129. Low confidence.
Pick: Under 6.5 +100. Low confidence.
Eastern Conference
There’s still value on all four of the Blues, Oilers, Rangers, and Lightning in virtually every market, at least in Gelo’s eyes, but we will again double down on the Lightning because their probability of cashing out is high and we need some high-probability sides to our portfolio. This time, we’re going in the Eastern Conference market, which is lower-value than the Stanley Cup side but is an area where we benefit from having a little higher payout, especially if we get into a situation in which the Canes and Avalanche each have a 1-0 lead next week, or something like that.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win -130. Low confidence.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win -130. Low confidence.
